1. Prepare a list before you head out. Have some ideas of what you're looking for. It will keep your mind busy thinking of alternatives if your first choice isn't available.
   
2. Don't expect items to be available. This past week was the last chance for retailers to get their shipments out to stores. Sure, there will be some shipments in tomorrow, Monday, and even Tuesday, but for the most part, what you see is what you get.
   
3. Which brings me to my next piece of advice. Call before you leave. Let your fingers do the walking. For example, it really stinks to brave traffic (both cars and people) only to find out the store doesn't have what you're looking for. Most bookstores and music shops do offer to hold items for at least a day so you know your trek will not be a waste of gas. Stores like to offer to hold items because there's a greater chance to get the customer in to buy something else. Why do you think all that merchandise is displayed by the cash registers?
   
4. Be patient. Lots and lots of people will be shopping the next few days. Everybody wants help, but there's only so many people working in the stores. As a bookseller, I want to make sure you find what you're looking for as quickly as possible. If I have to spend 10 minutes on one customer, that's that much less time I can help others. I want to help customers quickly and effectively.
   
5. Be nice to employees. Sure, Christmas shopping may be stressful for you, but realize that you've only spent a few days over a couple months completing your lists. People like me have been enduring customer requests since October. We will do the best we can with what we have available. If you go to my bookstore, we'll check to see if a book is in stock. If not, we'll call other stores to see if they have it. What doesn't help is a frustrated customer getting angry because we can't get the book they're looking for because they started shopping too late. (That's why it's important to have a list with alternatives in mind.)
   

In the interest of pursuing the best possible agenda for the future of our country, I will not seek to remain as Majority Leader of the United States Senate for the 108th Congress, effective January 6, 2003. To all those who offered me their friendship, support and prayers, I will be eternally grateful. I will continue to serve the people of Mississippi in the United States Senate.

We have long considered Lott a clumsy and ineffective Republican leader, and his controversial Strom Thurmond birthday remarks are a spectacular confirmation of that judgment. Is Lott a racist? We don't think so. Are many of the attacks on him dishonest and opportunistic? Yes. But he has been a poor leader of Senate Republicans, and the latest gaffe will only further erode his standing and his ability to lead.

"How do they think they got a majority in the South anyway?" Clinton told CNN outside a business luncheon he was attending. "I think what they are really upset about is that he made public their strategy."

He added: "They try to suppress black voting, they ran on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina, and from top to bottom the Republicans supported it."

The actual choice facing Republicans is whether they want Trent Lott to be out front as the face of their party when they confront future political battles over judicial nominees, national security and the rest of the Bush administration agenda.

Any judge who has ever ruled against any claim -- however outrageous -- by any organization that calls itself a civil rights group is likely to be hit with charges of "racism" when he or she is nominated for an appellate court appointment and is up for confirmation in the Senate. Who is going to go on nationwide television and reassure the public that the nominee is not a racist? Trent Lott?

Anything in national security policy that can be construed as "racial profiling" of people from the Middle East will be construed that way by critics. When the Republican leadership is called upon to defend the policy, will Senator Lott's presence among that leadership help the credibility of their defense?

One of the great opportunities that Republicans have of making inroads into the Democrats' virtual monopoly of minority votes in the years ahead is by offering vouchers as a way to rescue minority children from failing schools. But any attempt to claim the moral high ground on this issue can be dismissed with sneering remarks about the Republican majority leader.

No wonder some Democrats wanted Trent Lott to stay front and center. He can be a living red herring. Long after the current furor has died down, this episode can be resurrected for political encores.

Meanwhile, Republicans will have to tiptoe around racial issues and even kowtow to the likes of Al Sharpton. This can only disgust and demoralize the Republicans' own supporters.

I don't think we respond to the horrors of Sept. 11 with more violence. [T]hen Osama Bin Laden has already won.

Attempting to transform superior pulp into something thematically richer, the writer and director heighten the role of the story's setting to create a post-9/11 symphony on the strength, resilience and hope of New York City that's sure to draw considerable attention.